‘It’s you!
What do you want?
My heart?
I give it to you!’
I was quite sure he was drunk already.
‘No, Sir, I’d much rather have a chair for myself and some others for the girls with me.
They’ve abandoned us there all by ourselves, with the mere mortals – it’s heart-rending.’
‘That cries out for justice, pure and simple.
You shall all sit in tiers on the steps so that the populace can at least refresh its eyes while we’re boring them with our speeches.
Up with the lot of you!’
We did not wait to be asked twice.
Anais, Marie, and I climbed up first, with Luce, the Jauberts, and the other pennant-bearers behind us. Their lances got caught and entangled in each other and they tugged them furiously, their teeth gritted and their eyes lowered because they thought the crowd was laughing at them.
A man – the sacristan – took pity on them and obligingly collected the little flags and carried them away; no doubt the white dresses, the flowers, and the banners gave the good fellow the illusion that he was assisting at a slightly more secular Corpus Christi procession, and, from long force of habit, he removed our candles – I mean our flags – at the end of the ceremony.
Installed and enthroned, we gazed at the crowd at our feet and the Schools in front of us, those Schools so charming today under the curtains of greenery and flowers, under all that quivering decoration that hid their bleak, barrack-like look.
As to the vulgar herd of our schoolmates, left standing below, who stared at us enviously, and nudged each other and gave sickly smiles, we disdained them.
On the platform, there was a scraping of chairs and some coughing: we half-turned round to see the orator.
It was Dutertre; he was standing up, in the middle, lithe and bowing, and preparing to speak without notes, empty-handed.
A deep hush descended.
One could hear, as at High Mass, the shrill weeping of a small child who was pining to get away, and, just as at High Mass, it raised a laugh.
Then:
Mr Minister,
He did not speak for more than two minutes; his speech was deft and ruthless, packed with fulsome compliments and subtle scurrilous allusions, of which I probably only understood a quarter. It was savage against the Deputy and charming towards all the rest of humanity; towards his glorious Minister and dear friend – they must have done some dirty deals together – towards his dear fellow-citizens, towards the Headmistress, ‘so unquestionably of the very highest order, Gentlemen, that the number of awards and certificates gained by her pupils dispenses me from any other encomium’, … (Mademoiselle Sergent, seated down below, modestly lowered hear head beneath her veil); even, believe it or not, towards us: ‘flowers carrying flowers, a feminine flag, patriotic and enchanting’. At this unexpected thrust, Marie Belhomme lost her head and covered her eyes with her hand, Anais renewed her vain efforts to blush, and I could not prevent myself from rippling my spine.
The crowd looked at us and smiled at us, and Luce winked at me …
… of France and of the Republic!
The clapping and the shouts of applause lasted five minutes, so violent that they went bzii in one’s ears; while they were dying down, the lanky Anais said to me:
‘My dear, d’you see Monmond?’
‘Where? … Yes, I see him.
Well, what about him?’
‘He keeps staring all the time at that Joublin girl.’
‘Does that give you corns?’
‘No, but honest!
He must have queer tastes!
Just look at him!
He’s making her stand on a bench and he’s holding her up!
I bet he’s feeling if she’s got firm calves.’
‘Probably.
Poor Jeannette, I wonder whether it’s only the arrival of the Minister that’s put her in such a state of excitement!
She’s as red as your ribbons and she’s trembling all over …’
‘Old thing, do you know who Rabastens is getting off with?’
‘No.’
‘Look at him, you’ll soon see.’
It was true; the handsome assistant-master was fixedly gazing at someone … and that someone was my incorrigible Claire, dressed in pale blue, whose lovely, rather melancholy eyes were dwelling with satisfaction on the irresistible Antonin … Good!
My First Communion partner was caught again!
It wouldn’t be long before I should be hearing romantic descriptions of meetings, of delights, of desertions … Lord, how hungry I was!
‘Aren’t you hungry, Marie?’
‘Yes, I am a bit.’
‘I’m dying of starvation.
I say, do you like the milliner’s new dress?’
‘No, I think it’s loud.
She thinks the more a dress shrieks at you, the smarter it is.